A Change in the Weather
by IAmAJellyDoughnut
Summary: An alternate ending to the story Wicked. Elphaba's character changes slightly in the story, like a change in the weather.


Please note: This is an alternate ending to the book Wicked. The story begins with Elphaba's arrival in Kiamo Ko, after Fiyero's death.

I used some phrases that came straight from Wicked itself. I do not own the original book and I did not write it.

* * *

Elphaba sat on the small bench in an alcove in Fiyero's castle in Kiamo Ko. The woman who greeted her at the door had shuddered at her appearance. "Ah, well," she thought to herself, "it never was easy being green. I don't know how I could have expected otherwise." 

She heard slow, light footsteps. She looked up at the first staircase across from her. A woman- Fiyero's wife, Sarima, she supposed- descended the flight full of grace and self-possesion, her white skirts billowing, her torque a yoke of soft colors and precious metals, her face a careful composition of welcome. She descended down the second flight to the flagstone landing and stood in front of the traveller.

"How do you do," she stammered. Elphaba could tell that Sarima was rather startled by her appearance. Again, she shouldn't have expected much else.

Elphaba stood. "You are Sarima," she said, not returning the greeting.

Sarima did not lose her composure. "Yes, I am Sarima, mistress of Kiamo Ko." Sarima questioned her further, but Elphaba refused to answer anything. "Well, would you like to dine with us?" This Elphaba considered.

"Yes, if I must," she sighed in a bored voice.

"Wonderful!" Sarima faked a delighted smile. "I'll go tell the cook to make extra for our visitor. There's a guest room up those stairs and down the hallway." Elphaba watched her leave hurriedly. She turned and stalked up the stairs.

As far as Elphaba was concerned, it was a witch's room, and she reveled it. Like all good witch's rooms in the children's stories, it was a room with bowed walls, following the essential form of a tower. It had one broad window that, since it faced east, away from the wind, could be barred and opened without blowing everyone and everything out into the snowy valleys. Beyond the Great Kells were a rank of sentinels, purple-black when the winter sun rose over them, draining into blue-white screens as the sun moved overhead, and going golden and ruddy in the late afternoon. There were sometimes rumbling collapses of ice and scree.

For the next several days Elphaba did not speak. Sarima, Liir, and Sarima's sisters and children saw very little of her. This suited them all just fine. Sarima could hardly stand the sight of her at this point and Liir often got a feeling that Elphaba didn't care for anything he said or did. Elphaba learned that Irji, Manek and Nor had gotten Liir to pull his pants down so that they could see if his thing was green and she got very angry, so they did not like to meet with her. Nor, however, was still very curious about the guest.

Elphaba opened her room's door one day after a meal and saw Nor standing there touching her broomstick. The expression on the child's face as she turned and looked at Elphaba was of pure horror. Elphaba felt a strong anger boiling inside her. "What do you think you are doing, child? Has your mother taught you no manners? Do not go meddling in my things! Get out of this room! I never want to see you or your brothers in here ever again!" She felt compelled to strike Nor across the cheek, but she knew she couldn't do that to someone else's child.

Nor fled the room without a word, tears streaking her face. Elphaba slammed the door behind her. She pressed her back to it, chest heaving. She turned to the wardrobe and stared up at the hive of bees and Chistery sitting on top of it. "You're my only friends now," she said sadly. A white hot misery welled up inside her. "Fiyero… Where are you? Are you watching me now? Are you disappointed with what I've become?" She slumped against the door.

Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. She shoved herself away from the door and threw open the doors of the old wooden wardrobe. She reached inside and pulled out the Grimmerie. Her eyes were wide. It couldn't work. Could it? "Whatever it takes," she muttered under her breath. "Whatever it takes!" She sat down on her knees and hunched over the book. She opened the leather cover and began flipping through the pages.

Her heart skipped a beat. There it was.

She took a deep breath and began chanting. "Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen. Eleka nahmen atum atum eleka eleka. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka eleka." She continued reciting the spell and concentrated hard. "This will work," she thought. "Concentrate! Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen." She repeated it over and over. The time ticked by. "Eleka nahmen nahmen-" She stopped suddenly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "It won't work," she sighed miserably. "I don't know why I thought it would. He's not coming back. He never will. Not even for me."

She closed the Grimmerie. "One more disaster I can add to my generous supply."

After Elphaba's disasterous try to bring Fiyero back from the dead, she packed up all her things and left without leaving warning. Only Liir knew. Sarima went to her room the next day to ask why she wasn't coming down for supper and found that she wasn't there.

"Where are we going?" Liir tried to keep up with Elphaba, but he couldn't manage it. They were running toward the Emerald City. "Why can't we fly?"

"Shut up, you silly boy, and keep up!" She grabbed his wrist and pulled him ahead. He stumbled. "Watch your balance! It's not that hard to run, even for you!" She dug her fingernails into his skin. In spite of this all, he continued to lag behind.

"But-" he began.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up just now? Don't waste what little energy you have! You are so stupid at times, do you know that? It makes me wonder if you really are my son." She glared at him. This stung like ten whip lashes to his back. A tear rolled down his chubby face.

"Don't start crying! Be strong!"

They continued on like this. Elphaba became more and more agitated as Liir lagged farther and farther behind. He eventually collapsed, gasping for breath. Elphaba stopped there and kneeled next to him. A concerned, motherly look smothered the angry expression on her face. She caressed his face with her hand as he caught his breath. When he was breathing normally he sat up and stared at her, puzzled. She had never behaved like this before.

"I'm sorry," she muttered in her softest whisper. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Can you run?"

Liir shook his head.

Elphaba sighed. She picked up her broomstick. "Come."

They both straddled the broom. She picked up Chistery and the hive of bees and set them on the back of her broom. They flew to the gates of the Emerald City.

"Get off." They jumped down and entered the city. Elphaba pulled her hat low over her eyes. "Do not speak, Liir. Nobody can know who I am." They wandered through the city until they reached the Wizard's palace. "Hold these and stay here," she said to Liir, thrusting the beehive and Chistery into his arms. "I don't want you to see what goes on in here."

Without waiting for a response, she marched through the gates. She went through the castle until she got to the Wizard's chamber. Many guards tried to stop her along the way, but she merely lifted her hat slightly and said, "I wish to speak to the Wizard. It's urgent." They were all so stunned that they didn't stop her from going about her business, as she suspected they wouldn't.

The Wizard sat on his throne as though he were suspecting her. Well, so it would seem. All that was there to be seen was a skeleton of dancing lights. Luminescent bones hitched together to suggest something vaguely human, or at least mammilian.

"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," it said. "Who are you?"

"Oh, so now you need your eyes checked, do you?" Elphaba said snidely.

"Whooo arrrre youuuu?" bellowed the thing.

"Elphaba, the Thropp Third Descending from Nest Hardings, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West, whether you please or you don't."

A rumble of laughter came from the direction of the thing. "The Witch of the West! Yes, of course I know you. I just don't know why you have anything to say to me!"

"Well, maybe it's just because you've taken everything I love from me and so now I will just do what I originally intended to do in the first place! In other words, the Animals are getting their rights back today! I remember Dr. Dillamond! And though he's dead now, though he will not see what I'm doing for him, I will do what's right anyway! You're the Wicked one! They should call you the Wicked Wizard of Oz and me the Wonderful Witch of the West!"

The booming laugh rang again. "I think we have nothing more to say here, Elphaba. Guards! Guards!"

Before Elphaba knew what had happened, guards were everywhere. They fell from ropes through the ceiling, they rushed from passageways leading into the chamber, they came through trap doors in the floor. They lunged at her and grabbed her arms, tying them behind her.

The Wizard laughed again. "Good does not always conquer evil like the storybooks say! Much of the time it's all just stories like this one. All of Oz will celebrate when I tell them how I defeated the Wicked Witch! How she was begging for mercy at my feet, pleading for death, asking for the pain to end!"

"That will never happen. Let the Ozians believe what they will. It won't happen." Elphaba glared angrily, but she didn't struggle. She knew it was no use. She knew that she was overpowered by all the guards.

"I'll decide what to do with her. Throw her in the dungeon for now. Keep her cell heavily guarded." The guards lifted her by her armpits and led her out of the room. Elphaba bent her head and let them carry her off. She paid no attention to where she was being taken.

Before she knew it, she was thrown in an old cell. The grimy stone walls were short and close together. There was a pile of moldy straw shoved in a corner.

"No good deed goes unpunished," she muttered to herself. "Why do I have to care this much?" She slumped against a wall. Tears streamed down her face. "Don't cry now," she thought. "Be strong." She closed her eyes and thought. "I need Fiyero here to help me," she thought. "I need him. I have to bring him back." She strained to remember the spell that had previously been so disasterous and unhelpful. "How does that go?" Her eyebrows furrowed. She whispered the words. "Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka eleka. Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka eleka."

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and turned.

"It's okay. I'm here."

Disappointment welled up inside of her. Yet she still felt a sense of relief, deep in her heart.

"Liir? How did you get in here?" She forced herself upright.

"No time! Come on!" She grabbed Elphaba's hand and pulled her to her feet.

Liir sat down on his hands and knees. "Okay, do you see that really light gray stone on the ceiling? Step on me and push it. Then close your eyes." Elphaba did as he instructed, and when she opened her eyes she found herself outside. Liir was nowhere in sight.

"Liir? Liir? Are you there? Where are you, Liir?" She was crestfallen. "One more thing that's gone. He sacrificed himself just for me. Oh, Liir…" She stood up and began wandering the city. She came to the monestary where Fiyero had originally reunited with her. The statue of Saint Glinda stood and looked down on her. Elphaba kneeled and closed her eyes, her head bent in prayer. She prayed for Fiyero and for Liir. She prayed that the Animals would be okay. She prayed that the Wizard would be destroyed.

When she finally opened her eyes, night had swept through the city. Everything was shrouded in shadow. The full moon beamed down at her. And, just for one moment, she thought she saw Fiyero's face flicker over it's surface. He smiled at her, and she knew that he did come back for her. And she knew that she had to move on.


End file.
